Ep. 29 - Kirsten Axelsen

Kirsten Axelsen is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses primarily on domestic and international pharmaceutical policy. In addition to her AEI work, Ms. Axelsen is a consultant to biopharmaceutical and other life science companies.

Before joining AEI, Ms. Axelsen worked for over 20 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, both in-house and as a consultant. As vice president for strategy and new business assessment in Pfizer’s Innovative Health and Essential Health units, she oversaw business-development evaluations in the fields of rare disease, oncology, inflammation, immunology, and primary care. She was also responsible for developing a health strategy for emerging markets and renewing a 10-year strategic plan for China. She led the Pfizer Global Policy team, whose work included the policy strategy and impact analysis for the Affordable Care Act and Medicare Part D. Internationally, she evaluated health technology assessment programs in the EU and the quality consistency of pharmaceutical drugs in China. More recently, she has focused on Medicare Part D benefit design and preventive care, including obesity treatment and clinical trial representation.

In 2020, Ms. Axelsen cofounded the nonprofit organization the Preparedness and Treatment Equity Coalition, whose goal is to improve health outcomes for blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asians by funding and promoting the evaluation of approaches to health care delivery.